Love Letters, Side Burns and A Cherry Tree
by xanya-forever
Summary: CO-WRITTEN WITH ROSIEW It was the ad that got Giles interested, but the sideburns made him fall in love. She just wanted to do a man's laundry again. She didn't bargain for what happened... Multi x-over parody including BtVS, Alias, Dawson's Creek and LoT


Authors' Note: (Xanya-forever) Hello, gentle readers! We were up late one night, playing our favourite game (Buffy hangman) when this fic was born. (RosieW) Can you imagine that this little crossover started with tumbleweed? No, me either, but it did! (Xanya-forever) So we were in an odd mood (when aren't we??) and felt the need to write a little parody of quite a few of our favourite fandoms, but mainly focusing on Giles. You don't need to know all of the characters to understand what's going on though. I would write one paragraph, and then Rosie the other.  
  
CHARACTERS:  
  
Giles: Rupert Giles from 'BtVS'. Buffy's watcher, currently living in Sunnydale on his own. Very lonely and always on the look out for a new woman in his life.  
  
Gale: Gale Leery from 'Dawson's Creek'. Dawson's mum, also living alone and feeling lonely. What a perfect match...  
  
Jack: Agent Jack Bristow from Alias. A highly skilled spy with a tendency to be stony.  
  
Angel: Angel from 'Angel'. A vampire with a soul who is constantly trying to atone for his many sins, usually by brooding.  
  
Anya: Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins from 'BtVS'. A dead ex vengeance demon continually plagued with nightmares.  
  
Disclaimer: We don't, of course, own any of the characters (except Father John), they belong to Joss Whedon, Kevin Williamson and JJ Abrams. But if we did own them, you could bet your first born that their storylines would go something like this....  
  
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Anya often had bad dreams; it was something she'd grown accustomed to over the years. One of her least favourite ones involved a giant worm dueling with a cherry tree. It wasn't very scary, but it just had her baffled. What did the worm want with a CHERRY tree? It was just too odd. Maybe if it were an apple tree, then she could fathom it.  
  
It wasn't until nearly six months later when Anya was playing Chess with a little girl who liked to call herself Death that she got to find the real meaning behind her nightmare. They were discussing nightmares they had. After Death told her about the recurring nightmare she had where she was left hanging upside down from her local pizza shop it was Anya's turn. After a short retelling, Death asked a simple question to which Anya gave a simple answer. Then after pondering what Anya had said, Death replied, "It's quite simple really, your subconscious mind is telling you about how it feels lonely and neglected. I mean, you spend most of your time thinking about your body's needs and your mind is left out in the snow, slowing freezing. Try playing a few hard thinking games before you go to sleep. The Cherry tree will not bother you after that."  
  
Anya looked at Death very carefully. She was only a little girl - small hands, small feet and a small, well actually, a rather large and bulbous nose, come to think of it. How could something so wise come out of this tiny person? Nevertheless, Anya took Death seriously. After getting into her purple pajamas decorated with the words "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do!" and brushing her hair 296 times with a brush made out of two dead mice and a bit of talcum powder, she played a thinking game. Now, this was rather a large step for Anya. She hadn't used the old grey matter for quite some time, and it was rusty. She got out the oil can and gave it a few sprays before she tried that odd thinking thing again. It was hard with no one there to play a word game with her. That's one thing Xander had been good at. Now that he was still alive and she was, well... dead, she couldn't really play with him anymore.  
  
She thought and thought (and smiled all the while because everyone knows that games are fun, and to smile is to have fun) before she got it. She screamed "Eureka" and did a barn dance with the two bales of hay she kept in her bedroom. What had she got, you ask? Well she'd figured out the word that rhymed with money, but was the opposite of it. Something not at all shiny and wonderful, but actually an evil bringer of death!  
  
"Bunny!"  
  
So Anya went to sleep in her shoebox and dreamed of eating roast bunny for Easter lunch. There was not a cherry tree in sight.  
  
The "Eureka" could be heard across states. As it whistled past his ears, Dawson looked up from where he was concentrating on whittling a pipe for his stall. (You see, after failing to become anything in the movie business, Dawson went back home to sit by his creek and whittle pipes for his shop that opened every Sunday at two and closed every Thursday at eleven. After he had made at least $10, Dawson was planning on catching a deadly sickness and dying so his ashes could be sprinkled in the creek and it would forever be known as Dawson's Creek.) Getting back to the actual narrative, Dawson looked up and there, on the water, drifted a boat, and in the boat sat Pacey and Andie, kissing like there was no tomorrow. (Which, in actual fact, there wasn't, because over in Sunnydale I've created an AU where Buffy fails to stop Glory and the world ends, but don't worry - that doesn't happen for another couple of hours).  
  
Four months later, Dawson's life (or rather, death) plan had been successful and he was no longer able to be seen in the flesh and blood.  
  
Since Dawson's ashes had been scattered, his mother Gale, who was quite the promiscuous older woman, felt her life was empty. She needed to get out, replace Dawson, and do other promiscuous type things. She needed a man! Now, that sounds like Dawson was her love interest, but this wasn't the case, because though she lived in a small town, Gale was firmly against incest. She just liked doing his laundry. So Gale put an ad in the local paper for "an attractive older man with no dangerous fetishes and a love for facial hair on women. No Hanson fans need apply." Four weeks later, she got a reply. It was a letter, written on scented pink paper by someone with excellent penmanship. The name 'Giles' was written with many flourishes and a smiley face dotting the 'i'.  
  
**************************************************************** Giles stood by his letter box waiting anxiously for a reply from Gale. When he had seen the ad in the 'Capeside Express' (which he got every week, the obituaries in there was such a nice change from Sunnydale's) he knew he had found his soul mate. He loved a woman with facial hair, it was almost a fetish. But not a dangerous one like that slight obsession he had with mouse pads. He frowned suddenly, finally realising why Joyce hadn't appealed to him, she had such smooth creamy skin without any texture at all.  
  
Hearing the sound of a trolley being slowly wheeled up the sidewalk, Giles looked up. The young postman, Father John (he liked getting his message out around the neighbourhood) shook his head sadly at Mr. Giles "No Mail for you today Mr. Giles." Father John hated to see the heart broken expression on the olden man's face, "To get your mind off of this sad turn of events, you could knit a few sweater sets for the church fundraiser. The month, we're trying to cloth all the chipmunks in little America!" Father John's Russian was a bit rusty, but he thought it pulled it off quite well...  
  
Gale hastily read Giles' latest letter. What a man he was! She swooned as she read his letter aloud.  
  
Dearest, most precious Gale,  
  
You blew into my life like the fresh gale of wind you are, and you swept me off my tweed-clad feet (yes, I've managed to find a supplier who makes tweed shoes!). Since I started courting you, the sun has seemed brighter, the knives have seemed sharper and the screams of my captives just that little bit louder. A funny anecdote - Father John (my neighbourhood postman and dedicated Priest) delivered your latest letter to me and sung me a Russian song! He was under the impression that I was from the U.S.S.R because he'd once seen me running down the street with my buttocks painted red, and assumed I was a communist! How I laughed. Alas, the kettle is boiling and I shall have to brew the tea, but always remember I am thinking of you with the fondest of thoughts. From your most loving and anti-communist beau,  
  
Rupert Giles.  
  
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While waiting for Giles' next letter, Gale brushed her sideburns - she loved her sideburns. They were her sign independence; every night before sleeping she would brush them sixty-seven and a half times on each side.  
  
Hearing the click of her mailbox outside, Gale ran down her steps squealing in delight. Giles had informed her in his last letter that because she so enjoyed doing men's laundry he would send her his, she was so excited! Men's underwear was her favourite thing to iron. On top of the plastic bag that held his dirty clothes, Giles had stapled a note that simply said 'mouse pads.'  
  
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Giles folded up his underwear and sighed in contentment. He had just got it back from Gale, all pressed and smelling for all the world like it had just been doused in olive oil. Perhaps it had! Maybe that was his lady friend's secret. He hoped so. If it were, they had more in common than even she realised! Being the rather wayward youth he had been, Giles knew all the tricks involving olive oil, bricks and just a little printing ink.  
  
He climbed the tree outside his apartment and settled down to read her letter.  
  
Darling Rupie,  
  
I've decided that you will here to fore be called Rupie, because Giles reminds me of the pet monkey I had when I was twelve. I loved that monkey - in fact, I've actually modeled my sideburns on him. Sadly, little hairy Giles passed away after eating his mother, who had just consumed a whole carton of contaminated bananas. This was the worst day of my life. Much, much worse than when Dawson died. I'm sorry, I have to go... I need to take flowers to the giant statue I erected in the town square of Capeside to honour his memory. I'm... I'm... please, help me get through this sad time... it's been almost forty years since his death. Yours lovingly but on the brink of suicide,  
Gale.  
  
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Gale howled, Giles hadn't written for 3 weeks and she was so angry! He had promised her that he would write everyday! But it had been three weeks! Well, she assumed it had been three weeks. After the second day she had chained herself to her mailbox, and since she couldn't count past 7..... Well it was anyone's guess, really. "I need a disk and three folding chairs! I want to build my eyelashes a cradle! They keep falling out!" she sobbed and sobbed.  
  
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Giles knew he was letting Gale down, but he couldn't help the unfortunate circumstances that had stopped him replying to her for the last few weeks.  
  
It had all started a few Sundays ago, when he had been sitting at home, innocently alphabetizing his mouse pad collection. There had been a loud knock at the door, followed by a lot of yelling and perhaps a chorus of 'Auld Lang Syne'. Before he knew what had knocked his glasses off his head, Giles was being dragged off to the police station. His cries of "Don't rip the tweed!" had fallen on deaf ears, and his new suit was left in tatters. He was shoved into a cell with what looked like a six hundred pound sadist called Bomber Barry (if his tattoo was to be believed) and left there for thirteen days. Finally, the police told him they'd been tipped off about his mouse pad habits. Giles' ears burned red - he'd promised himself he would quit that, but he hadn't lived up to it. Oh the shame! The whole town would know!  
  
After much fast talking and the threat of twelve years in jail with Bomber Barry, Giles relinquished his huge collection of mouse pads and returned home, a mere shell of the man he had been before Bomber Barry had given him some "back rubs".  
  
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After poor Rupie's long, detailed letter explaining what had happen to him over the last three weeks, Gale packed her bags. That man needed a woman's touch to keep him in line! Without even considering what would happen to the flowers in the town square, Gale left Capeside to have her first face to face meeting with her darling Rupie.  
  
It was two hours after boarding the bus when Gale was interrupted half way through her mental check list of her sideburns by a young man (well compared to her he was young) and his very loud broodings. She whipped around and stared; she had never seen anyone quite so handsome (expect for her Rupie, of course)! He was a tall man with a stony, tanned face. His eyes were iciy cold and Gale felt like they were staring straight into her soul. She felt a budding wave of desire coming on. She smiled coyly at him, patting her sideburns absentmindedly. "Hi' she giggled "I'm Gale, what's your name?"  
  
His eyes shifted to her face and he paused "Jack." he said.  
  
"Oh Hi Jack, I love your coat! So CIA." She watched as his eyes, which by the time she had finished her sentence had wandered off, came screaming back to stare wide eyed at her. He coughed nervously then stated  
  
"You interrupted my brooding, please move immediately!" Once again Gale giggled before standing up and straitening the pinafore she was wearing. "This is my stop anyway! Bye Jack, you go CATCH the bad guys!"  
  
But an onlooker had observed this entire interaction. A tall, similarly brooding individual. His eyes were as brown and soulful (he had a soul, you see) as an oak tree. He, too, was wearing a long, black coat. It billowed around his manly frame and sent shivers down the perky bus drivers' spine. The aforementioned interaction had interrupted his brooding, so he felt Jack's pain. Actually, he PHYSICALLY felt Jack's pain. It was that kind of connection common in twins. For these two men were twins! So strong were their similarities that there was no doubt in this bold statement.  
  
He turned back to this woman who had claimed to be called Gale (who was gathering her possessions), and admired her side burns. They were truly a fine pair. But he found them so enticing that he was unable to continue brooding, which saddened him deeply. Of course, this sudden feeling of grief made brooding even easier, so he began to do it again. Unfortunately for him, the perky bus driver chose this moment to tap him on the shoulder and offer him a cold beverage. He declined, as he only drunk blood. This did present problems when traveling by bus, as they so rarely had his meal of choice. But, being Angel, he often chose things that would cause him pain, because he had a lot to atone for, and enjoyed the extra brooding.  
  
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Gale walked quickly down the Rupie's steps. She was so pleased to be here. Now she could wash his underwear when she liked and iron his socks... her second most favourite thing to iron. She paused and looked around the courtyard that stood before her Rupie's front door. Before seeing him, she had to shake away that other man from her mind, so she put down her bag and went through a quite lavish set of dance aerobic moves that got her blood pumping and the sweat rolling. After she completed the last movie called the 'Flaming Flamingo', she straightened her side burns, picked up her bag, knocked on her Rupie's front door and said "Rupie, your little panda has arrived!  
  
Giles was just plaiting his hair when he heard the knock on his door and the sound of his beloved's voice. Well, he thought it was her voice, he'd never actually spoken to her. But the voice he heard gave him the same feeling he got when he frolicked (naked) down the high way, so he knew it must belong to someone he loved.  
  
He ran to the door making quite a racket as went because he was wearing his tap shoes. He flung it open and seized the petite woman in his big, tree trunk like arms.  
  
"Oh Gale!" he said, his voice breaking with all the emotion he felt. He drunk in the site of her, especially her side burns, which looked so effortlessly styled yet so, so perfect. When he noticed that the phrase "Troll Hunting Championship, 1999" appeared on her pinafore, he started crying. Here was a woman with side burns who loved to hunt trolls! He didn't think he'd ever felt as happy as he did right then, not even when Xander had called him G-Man, his wrestling pseudonym. While he wiped his eyes with Gale's pinafore, he took in her smell - one of elderberries and shoe polish.  
  
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It was nearly six days since Gale had arrived on his door step, and 5 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes since Giles (or Rupie as he was now called) decided he would grow sideburns to match his beloved's. He was harvesting his potatoes which grew under the bathroom sink, when he heard a strange knock knock knocking on his bedroom window. Hastily putting on his cape (he only harvested potatoes in the nude, an ancient ritual from back before he had sailed from the mother country), he glided into his bedroom. Gale was asleep on the bottom bunk bed, so he concluded that it wasn't her making the knock knock knocking. He stared at his window and let out a girly... I mean manly squeal at the sight that greeted him. A giant owl was flapping out side his window, a letter clutched to its leg.  
  
He let the owl in, and she immediately ate the side burns that had just been taking shape. Rupie would have noticed, had he not been so caught up in reading the letter that had arrived.  
  
Rupert Giles,  
  
It has recently been discovered that you are a wizard. Due to the fact that your parents dumped you at birth, we failed to realise this until yesterday when your mother, Minerva McGonnagal, admitted she had had a son from a sordid love affair with Rubeus Hagrid. Please be at King's Cross Station at Platform Nine and Three Quarters tomorrow, where you will immediately be transported to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin your studies as a First Year. No need to be afraid, Rupert, we're sure you'll settle in wonderfully and make friends in no time.  
  
Yours sincerely,  
  
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster.  
  
Rupie was astounded. How could he leave his life in Sunnydale??? He'd only just found the woman of his dreams and he wasn't going to let her go yet! Especially not before his sideburns out grew hers. It just wouldn't do! So Rupie did the only thing he could think of; he jumped out of his window, somehow thinking that his cape would enable him to fly to Hogwarts and right this wrong. It did not.  
  
Gale awoke when she heard an enormous crash.  
  
Gale wailed, thick black tears pouring down her face in waves. Her poor, stupid Rubie had gone and dropped himself into a portal to God knows where! She was so upset! Last night when she had gone to sleep in her bunk, she had been happy and content - her Rupie snoring above her, dreaming about melting clocks and thick chocolate milkshakes (or so she imagined). She had dreamed of the life they would have together. They could buy matching walking frames and rent a room in a old folks' home. Gale had been up to the bit, in her little dream fantasy, where her Rupie was chasing a turkey for their home styled breakfast when she had awoken suddenly to that terrible crash!  
  
She had rushed to the open window, her feet sticking slightly because of the cream and maple syrup they had left on the floor from there midnight snack. She had stuck her head out just in time to see her Rupie's beautiful, unique, hairy legs disappear down a portal the size of a shoe- box.  
  
And that's where she was standing now, tears still pouring down her face. She shrieked and squealed in a seemingly never ending cycle. Her cries of distress brought everybody running, including two handsome brooding lads....  
  
Jack and Angel, who had been playing a brotherly game of chess that involved much sighing, brooding, grunting and quite a lot of impersonating Britney Spears, activated their jet packs and flew to the scene of the accident. It was truly a devastating sight. Angel could never bear to see anyone in pain, except for himself and his dear brother, and was dangerously jealous. How could he atone for his sins if someone else got to wallow in self pity??? He tried to hide this jealousy by looking in the mirror he always carried around with him. This was helpful, he didn't see himself and so felt a sudden pang of self pity because he was a vampire, and so was now able to help the poor, weeping woman in front of him.  
  
Jack, always observant, recognised Gale from the bus at once. Now, he didn't think of himself as a paranoid man (unless - had people being saying that behind his back?!?) but he couldn't help but think that this was a set up, carefully engineered to trap him in a big net. So he did a cartwheel and cried to Gale  
  
"You'll never catch me!" and skipped off, whistling "Spice Up Your Life" so as to fit in with the other innocent by-standers.  
  
Angel was shocked and hurt by this sudden departure of his dear brother, and pitied himself even more than usual. He pursed his lips, furrowed his over hanging brow and picked up Gale in his arms, deciding that she would be the Jane to his Tarzan. Gale seemed to like this plan, as she whipped him naughtily with her riding crop and proclaimed that she would do a clog dance the moment they arrived home.  
  
******************************** EPILOGUE **************************  
  
JACK'S STORY And so, twelve years later, Jack was still running away from Gale and her wily trap. Hah, she thought she could get the better of him! Well, he wasn't that gullible, no siree! I mean, that whole thing about him having been married to a KGB spy for eight years meant NOTHING. Anyway, he had grown a large, blond beard, had surgery to give himself a permanent affro and had taken to speaking in an ancient dialect of Icelandic. There was no way she could catch him now! Jack pondered his lucky escape while he tied his laces.  
  
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have the one you've been waiting for all evening! Get ready to scream, cry, laugh and cheer like you've never cheered before, because here comes Jack "The Blade" Bristow! Tonight he will be skating his famous, and oh so creative piece to the musical stylings of Madonna! Take it away, Bladey!"  
  
Lost in the music, Jack completed fourteen triple axles in under two minutes, a blissful smile on his face. Figure skating had become his passion, his love, his reason for living. Wearing his favourite costume - red skates, pink tights and a huge purple poncho - he felt as if he'd never been happier in his whole life.  
  
ANGEL'S STORY It was Gale's obsessive need to iron his underwear that finally drove Angel out of their modest, beautifully painted brick bungalow. It was after 16 years of marriage, 24 'special' children and three magical trips to Ireland that he finally left, dragging his 5 suitcases filled with his brand of hair gel. He stalked the streets, trying to get back into the grove of being a Broody-vampire-with-a-soul. It wasn't until he killed his fifth nun of the night that he realised he had things backwards! Oh the horror! His angsty cries could be heard from every corner of Miami were he had settled. As the sun rose, Angel flung himself into the sea, weeping in despair as his hair became tangled and he brunt to a crisp.  
  
GALE'S STORY Gale was nearing 94, she had false teeth, false hips, false legs, false eye brows and a false tail, but that didn't stop her enjoying a good ole fashioned donkey ride! After her darling Angel had left her, she'd fallen into quite a state of sordid-ness. Her 24 children had all decided that intermarriage was the way to go, and had ended up with 300 children, all sporting furry ears and the words "Hooked On Grapes" emblazoned into their foreheads as birth marks. As stated before, Gale just couldn't abide incest, so she ran back to Capeside and became the most famous agony aunt those parts had ever seen.  
  
People would come from miles away to tell her their problems. Perhaps it was her special brand of "tea" that calmed them down. Now, at 94, she still felt something was lacking. It came to her in a flash - Dawson! After all these years, she really hadn't been able to replace him. She set out to drink the entire creek in which his ashes had been scattered in. It took her the better part of 10 years, but was achieved nonetheless. Just after she took her last sip, Gale's side burns fell out. This shocked the poor woman so much that she simply dropped dead, right into the creek bed. They erected a memorial in the town square (next to that of her pet monkey Giles) and renamed the creek Gale's Creek, and later turned her life into a made-for-TV movie of the same name.  
  
GILE'S STORY (JUST AFTER HE HAS FALLEN THROUGH THE PORTAL...) It wasn't the birds or the bushes, the thumps or the screams; it wasn't the needy sign of the wind or the beautiful call of an elf that drew Rupie out of his deep slumber. No, it wasn't any of these things, but rather it was the growling, gruff voice that proclaimed "And my axe!"  
  
Rupie looked around, noticing that he was naked except for his cape, and lying in a circle of the strangest folk he had every seen - why that man was wearing a DRESS!  
  
"What have you gotten yourself into now, old boy?" Rupie muttered to himself as the circle tightened around him....  
  
A/N: Please review! We've never written anything like this (it took us the better part of a night, too. In fact, as I write this it's almost two thirty in the morning) and we'd love feedback of any kind. Maybe not "this is crap!" but you know, as long as it's constructive. Go, my little petal drops, review! 


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